Haiman/Muscogee Ironworks - Civil War

In reading a Civil War history book, I came across mention of a Louis and Elias Haiman family, of Columbus, GA, who manufactured (it was reported) swords and bayonets - among other military items, privately starting in about 1860 or so, and then as part of the Muscogee Ironworks (which they had purchased).

My question to edged weapons experts in this regard is, has anyone had experience collecting or seeing their edged weapons, and if so, what distinguishing characteristics did those have? Is there anything anyone can tell me about their weapons?

I know that it is frustrating to ask questions and get no response. Let me try to answer you as best I can.

Legitimate Confederate swords are all hard to collect and some of the more obscure makers such as the Haiman family are particularly difficult to follow as sword makers. Confederate swords, as well as CS anything, is a field of collecting fraught with danger. Very little written primary source material, fakes galore, lots of different opinions, etc. cloud the subject and there are no clear answers for the information you are trying to get.

Originals are hard to come by. Most CS swords fall into the so-called "Dog River" category. For instance, we know from written primary sources that there was a sword manufactory at "Dog River" who sold swords to the Confederacy. We don't know who operated it, exactly where Dog River is, what swords they made, nor what they looked like. So, authors started to categorize every unmarked and unknown CS sword as a "Dog River" sword.

One could not really be able to recognize a Haiman sword due to perceived similarities to a Boyle & Gamble sword. Most CS swords are hand made as one-offs and they generally will show slight variations one from another depending on who was wielding the hammer and what parts were available for assembly that day. You ask several sensible and theoretically simple questions but there are no simple answers. Sword collectors have argued over these questions for years and it still boils down to opinion. There are several good, but old, books on CS swords. The Albaugh books come to mind. But again, the information sometimes boils down to the opinion of the author because of lack of primary written sources. That is why everybody has a Dog River CS sword.